exercise on such an occasion. But these supreme servants
of the people literally snubbed their masters, taking no fur-
ther notice of their views, wishes and demands than to bundle
them up and devolve them in a mass on the ensuing Legis-
lature* which they immediately proceeded, as we have just
seen, to put off two months longer with no other object than
to put this stupendous villainy as much as possible beyond
the reach of its arm. But not only did the Convention thus
refused to act against the Yazoo crime, it refused even to
speak against it. Not the slightest whisper of denunciation
or disapproval came from its lips ; not the slightest opinion
was breathed against it or the manner of its procurement.
So the Yazooists were more than satisfied, having gotten the
utmost they wanted, a friendly inactivity and silence, a
kind refusal to do or say aught against them, and also a
lengthened period of time for working out their programme
of disposing of their lands at enriching prices.

Having thus extended to the Yazooists all the aid it could
give, indeed, all they needed, and refused to say or do aught
to their prejudice, the measure of the Convention's shame
was full enough, even though it had not been guilty of the
further shameless misdoing, of leaving almost untouched the
real business for which it had been created, and coolly de-
volving the same on another Convention, which, for that
purpose it ordered to be elected in 1*797. But perhaps we
ought to be rather thankful for this delinquency of the Con-
vention and the mode it adopted of making amends there-
for: Since to this cause we owe a better work than could
have been gotten at its hands, namely, the glorious old Con-
stitution of 1*798. the time-honored mental product of the
illustrious Jackson and his anti- Yazoo compatriots, under
which Georgia long grew and prospered, still clinging to it
with increasing reverence for nearly seventy years until
finally in these evil latter days it was, to her eternal sorrow,

Bentan'tJlb., Vol 3,^.325.



THE YAZOO FRAUD. 125

overthrown and thrust aside by a conquering despotism and
unreasoning bayonets.

When the great disappointment occasioned by the above
told gross infidelity of the Convention came upon the people,
when they saw what a scurvy, pernicious trick had been
played off on them from that high quarter and perceived
themselves cheated, wronged, betrayed at every turn, first
by their Legislature and then by their Convention, then it
was that their fierce indignation rose to its acme. Then it
was that enraged and bewildered, they felt intensely the
need of somebody on whom they could repose a true and
boundless trust, on whom they could fully rely to lead and
contrive for them, to conquer and crush in their behalf in
this matter. Then it was that they called upon their most
idolized man, Gen. James Jackson, to leave his proud seat
among the Conscript Fathers of the Union, the constitution-
al counsellors of Washington, and to come at once to their
help and headship. Then it was that with a sublime alacrity
and devotion, he instantly responded to a call which his own
fiery sentiments and denunciations had largely inspired.
Without a moment's hesitation he resigned his Senatorship
and dismounting, as it were, from the equestrian rank, trode
the ground once more, a private soldier, merging himself
with the people as one of themselves and literally fighting
on foot in their midst from May to November, to which time
the election had been changed by the recent Convention.
Behold him there covered with dust, assailed by hatred, the
target of the enemy's deadliest aims throughout the long
canvass. Behold him, "leading, contriving for the people,"
toiling with tongue and pen, with mind and body, facing
and defying every danger, devoting himself in every way,
sparing himself in none: A spectacle, how replete with all
that can be conceived of the sublime and beautiful in politi-
cal conduct ! His work was done fearlessly and thoroughly.
His spirit pervaded all Georgia and entered like a higher
life the souls of her people. The enemy strived at first to
make some show of a stand against him and his brave yeo-



126 THE YAZOO FRAUD.

manry, but in vain. In all parts of the State the victory
was complete and resulted in returning him arid his
friends and supporters to the Legislature hy an overwhelm-
ing majority in both branches.

Of course, in that Legislature he was the master spirit
the dictator and controller. ' But not much 'of study or effort
was needed from him there. Execution alone was the watch-
word and .work. "What had to be done was already prefixed
and pronounced by the people at the polls, rendering the
duty and action of their Representatives as plain, simple
and unobstructed as it was grand, imposing and important.
That duty was to repeal the Yazoo Act, to annul and rescind
the Yazoo Sale as unconstitutional, fraudulent and void, a
huge treachery, a heinous conspiracy of the buyers and sellers
against the people, the offspring of bribery and corruption.
This duty upon full and convincing proofs laid before them,
they unflinchingly performed. Whilst the State was thus as-
asserting and enforcing her unaltered ownership of the vast
territories of which it had been sought to despoil her, she by
the same Act disavowed all claim to the vile purchase money
that had been thrust into her Treasury and directed it to be
restored to those from whom it came or to whom it might
belong. Moreover, to give the greater emphasis to her
sovreign fiat of condemnation and annulment, she ordered
every vestige of the accursed transaction to be obliterated
from her records and the huge, pretentious enrollment of the
Act itself to be given to the fiarnes, consecrated although it
was by accumulated high and solemn signatures and by the
great Seal of Georgia pendant in massive wax. The high,
unexampled, damnatory sentence was duly carried into exe-
cution under the broad, bright sky, on the beautiful State
House square, at Louisville, the new seat of Government, in
the presence of the Governor and Legislature and a mighty
assemblage of the people. And according to a tradition,
which cannot de doubted, for it has descended to us uncon-
tradicted in a continuous current from that period to the
present day, a holy, religious eclat, significant of the Divine



THE YAZOO FRAUD. 127

displeasure on the great iniquity, was shed over the scene by-
drawing down the consuming fire from heaven with a sun-
glass before that immense and imposing multitude of wit-
nessing eyes.

SECTION VIII.

It was on the 13th of February, 1796, that this crushing
blow was struck. After it a long pause ensued, during
which the new Yazooists stood still grasping their scrip,
awaiting an event which they soon began to foresee, and
which, upon its happening, would at once put a more hope-
ful face on their now ruined affairs. This event, alike fore-
seen and wished for by them, was the same that the origi-
nal speculators had so long deprecated and thwarted,
namely, the cession by Georgia to the United States, of all
her Western territory, including these very Yazoo lands :
A cession which the present claimants very well knew
would, whilst carrying the lands over to the Federal Gov-
ernment, carry them at the same time cum onere, loaded
with any and all claims to which they had previously be-
come subject, their own, the Yazoo claims, among the rest.
An immediate result consequently of the cession would be
the thronging of the Yazoo claimants to the Federal capital,
and their becoming suitors to the Federal Government for
the settlement of their claims.

But although such future cession to the United States un-
doubtedly became a foregone conclusion in all minds quickly
after Georgia's annulment of the Yazoo sale, yet more than
two years elapsed before the first step towards it was taken,
before any proposal or overture was made from either side.
This delay arose from the fact that our Legislature in 1790,
among other denunciations of the Yazoo sale, had pro-
nounced it unconstitutional, wholly denying the competency
of the Legislature under the then existing Constitution of
the State to alienate her Indian domains. It was a clear
corrollary from this Legislative pronouncement that no au-
thority existed anywhere among us either to offer or enter-



128 THE YAZOO FRAUD.

tain a proposition for such alienation. And not only was
there no competent authority for the purpose then existing
in the State, but none could be called into existence earlier
than the year 1798 at which time the new Constitutional
Convention ordered by that faithless one of May, 1795, was
to be held : Until the holding of which, therefore, the
State had no alternative but to remain silent and inactive on
the whole subject of a cession. And Congress also, in de-
ference to the aforesaid disclaimer of power by our Legisla-
ture, observed a like silence and inaction, and refrained from
any suggestion of a cession until after the Convention had
been chosen and was within less than a month of the time
of its assemblage. Then it was that Congress spoke, and
on the 7th of April, 1798, passed an Act empowering the
President of the United States to appoint three Commission-
ers, whose duty, among other things, it should be to receive
from such commissioners as should be appointed on the part
of Georgia any proposals for the relinquishrnent or cession
of the whole or any part of the territory claimed by the
State lying out of its ordinary jurisdiction.

This act was undoubtedly passed in anticipation of the
Convention's soon meeting, and in the confidence that that
Body would receive it as an overture for a cession and honor
it as such with a suitable response. Nor was this confidence
disappointed. How was it possible it should have been ?
For of that Convention the noble Jackson, although Gover-
nor of the State at the time, was a member, master spirit
there too as in the anti-Yazoo Legislature of 1796, sur-
rounded now as he was then, by his most choice, enlight-
ened and pure-minded compatriots. From such men no
botched work could come when a great public duty was to be
performed. And certainly nothing could be more thorough
and perfect than what actually came from their hands in re-
gard both to the Yazoo subject and the State's Western terri-
tory. What they did was to erect an express constitutional
barrier against the sale of the territory of the State or any part
of it to individuals or private companies unless a county or



THE YAZOO FRAUD. 1^9

counties should have first been laid off including such terri-
tory, and the Indian rights thereto should have been first
extinguished also. Anybody can see at a glance how com-
pletely this prohibition goes to the bottom of things, exter-
minating the very roots and all possibility in the future of
such crimes and misdoings as the two Yazoo sales had been.
It is not in this provision, however, although it was wise
and statesman-like in the highest degree, that we find the
response that was wanted to the above mentioned Congres-
sional overture. That presents itself in another clause
which enables the Legislature to sell or contract to the
United States all or any part of the State's Western do-
main lying beyond the Chattahoochee, and then again still
further in that third clause which authorizes the Legisla-
ture to give its consent to the establishment by the United
States of one or more governments westward of that river.
Behold here implanted in our long honored Constitution of
1798, by the magnanimous men who then held sway in Geor-
gia, the germ of the memorable cession of April, 1802, and
of the two great States of Alabama and Mississippi.

These provisions show that the sense of the Convention
was in favor of a cession to the United States. The first
Legislature under the new Constitution, being of like opin-
ion, proceeded at once to take measures for carrying out the
object. On the 6th of December, 1*799, it passed an Act
appointing Commissioners to settle with those of the United
States the terms of the cession ; to which Act the ensuing
Legislature of 1800, made an amendment, adding to the list
of Commissioners on the part of the State the name of Gen.
Jackson, who was now filling a second gubernatorial term,
but had just been chosen by the Legislature to the United
States Senate as successor to Gen. Gunn, whose time was
to expire on the 3d of March ensuing.

The great business now proceeded at a quickened pace.
Assuming it as certain that the ultimate and early event
would be a vast territorial cession, embracing the Yazoo
lands, Congress had already in May, 1800, amended the



130 THE YAZOO FRAUD.

aforementioned Act of April, 1798, by imposing on the Na-
tional Commissioners therein created, a heavy and tedious
additional duty which would and could only arise after the
cession had been made, the duty, namely, of investigating
all claims against the lands ceded, of receiving from the
claimants propositions for the compromise and settlement of
their claims, and of laying a full statement of the whole, to-
gether with their opinion thereon, before Congress for its
decision thereon. Mr. Jefferson upon entering on the Presi-
dency found the appointing of these Commissioners one of
the first matters demanding his attention. His sense of the
exceeding magnitude and importance of the duties to be de-
volved on them is strongly attested by the men he selected.
They were none other than three of the members of his Cab-
inet Mr. Madison, his Secretary of State, Mr. Gallatin, his
Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Lincoln, his Attorney
General. A grander and more imposing set of Commission-
ers for any object or purpose whatever was never anywhere
constituted, whether we regard the illustrious character and
ability of the men or their ripe, thorough statesmanship
and public experience, or the splendor and importance of
the offices they were then actually holding near the Presi-
dent. Their very appointment shows that Mr. Jefferson
contemplated that in performing their trust as Commission-
ers they were to be all the while acting under the responsi-
bility that attached to them as components of his Adminis-
tration.

Fully worthy of association and conference with such men
were the Commissioners on the part of Georgia, Jackson,
Baldwin, and Milledge, whose functions, however, were
to be more simple and of shorter continuance, confined to
the single business of negotiating and signing the cession
expected to be made by the State a work which was com-
pleted on the 24th day of April, 1802, whereby Georgia con-
veyed to the United States all the territory stretching from
her present Western boundary to the Mississippi river, and
lying between the 31st and the 35th parallels of Latitude.



THE YAZOO FRAUD. 131

In consideration of which the United States agreed to pay
Georgia a million and a quarter of dollars, and to be at the
expense of extinguishing for her the Indian occupancy on
all the territory still retained by the State.

Long before the great bargain was brought to a close, the
Yazoo claimants were astir wherever any of them were to be
found in America or Europe. Either in person or by their
agents or proxies, they were soon seen swarming around the
United States Commissioners and overwhelming them with
formal notices of their claims, warning them that if the Na-
tional Government bought these lands from Georgia, it
would have to buy them at its peril, subject to be supplanted
and ousted by the older and better title which they asserted
they already held from Georgia, the deeds and evidences of
which they paraded before and deposited with the Commis-
sioners, into the details of whose labors, at once immense
and minute, there is no call upon us to enter in this tract.
All that we need here is the general result at which they ar-
rived and which, along with their opinion, they reported to
Congress on the 16th of February, 1803, with full state-
ments and accompanying documents, all which may be
found spreading over many pages of the State Papers.* In
their report the Commissioners mention the notorious fact,
confirmed by the title papers the claimants had lodged with
them, that the lands had all passed out of the original
grantees and were now vested in second holders. These
secondary holders said that they had bought them without
knowledge or notice of the fraud, bribery and corruption
that had contaminated the original purchase and, therefore,
they claimed immunity for their title from these grounds of
attack. The Commissioners, nevertheless, set forth fully
all the criminating evidence which had come to their hands,
being the same that was before the Rescinding Legislature,
and in the. body of their report is stated the very significant
fact, "that all the deeds given by the Companies, which had
been exhibited to the Commissioners, as well as all the sub-

dmerican State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. /, pages 132, 150.



132 THE YAZOO FRAUD.

sequent deeds, with only two or three exceptions, not only
give a special instead of a general warranty, but have also a
special covenant in the following words : 'And lastly, it is
covenanted and expressly agreed and understood by and
between the parties to these presents, that neither the grant-
ors aforesaid, nor their heirs, executors or administrators,
shall be held to any further or other warranty than is here-
in before expressed, nor liable to the refunding any money
in consequence of any defect in their title from the State of
Georgia, if any such there should hereafter appear to be.' "
Such a phenomenon as this on the very face of their deeds
would have been enough in law to charge the claimants
with the damning notice they denied, even in the absence of
all the other convincing proofs against thorn that existed.
Upon this fact, then, and all the other facts and circum-
stances which came to their knowledge, the Commissioners
were forced to the conclusion that the title of the claimants
could not be supported.

But they proceeded, nevertheless, to express their belief
that "the interest of the United States, the tranquility of
those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various
equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of
most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter
into a compromise on reasonable terms ;" and they thereupon
proceed to submit to the consideration of Congress two
plans of compromise, one proposing compensation to the
claimants in land, 'the other in money and in case the
moneyed plan should be adopted, then that the claimants
should be paid $2,500,000 in certificates of the Government,
drawing interest, or $5,000,000 in non-interest bearing cer-
tificates, payable out of the proceeds of the sale of the
lands.

There is a very deep significance in this recommendation
of a compromise by the commissioners. It amounts to their
saying that, "although the claimants have no title and the
Government is under no obligation, legal or equitable, to
pay them a cent, yet as they will have a vast and intermi-



THE TAZOO FRAUD. 133

nable right and faculty of litigation, annoyance and vexa-
tion against the future settlers on these lands under titles
to he derived from the Government, which, among other
huge evils, will have the effect of greatly retarding the sale,
settlement and improvement of the lands, that, therefore,
it would be both for the interest of the Government and the
interest and tranquility of the future settlers, to extinguish
these claims noic even at the cost of five millions of dollars,
rather than leave all these innumerable acres thus liable to
permanent controversy and litigation, and every settler on
them thus exposed to law suits, against which the Govern-
ment would be bound to be at all the. trouble and expense of
defending him and of making him in the end a full remuner-
ation and indemnity, in case he should chance unexpectedly
lose the land he had bought from the Government.

Such was the view the Commissioners took of this matter,
now can the practical sense and wisdom of it be gainsaid.

Yet it prevailed not with Congress. For seven long years
from 1803 to 1810, the claimants persisted to little purpose
in beseiging and battering that body, which seemed, indeed,
rather to harden than to give way tinder their ceaseless im-
portunity. The terrible Napoleanic wars were all this while
raging over Europe, threatening, striving, as it were, to
draw our country, too, within their fearful vortex, out of
which to keep her was Mr. Jefferson's great study, using to
that end all upright and honorable means, even to such
harsh and exhausting measures as the Embargo, the Re-
striction and the Non-Intercourse ; in spite of all of which
the dreaded engulfment came at last, under Mr. Madison's
administration. Yet little recking of the country's trou-
bles or of the mighty and distressful turmoil of the times,
the Yazooists haunted Congress every session with their ill-
odored, unrelenting claims, backed by the ablest and most
influential lobby that had up to that time ever invested
Congress ; sustained at the same time by a powerful North-
era avlvocacy on the floor. But all would not do. The pe-
riod Lad not yet come when the people's Representatives



134 THE YAZOO FRAUD.

could be gotten to throw a propitiating sop of millions
drawn from the sweat of their brow, in order to buy off a
vile claim pronounced to be at once the offspring of crime,
fraud and corruption, and to be devoid also of all legal
quality and character, by which it could demand and coerce
support.

If at this remote day any wonder should be felt that
the recommendation of a compromise by a Commission
composed of such great men and high functionaries as Madi-
son, Gallatin, and Lincoln, should have been so unavailing
with the House, where the Bill for the proposed appropria-
tion had to originate, let it be recalled how lofty and un-
bending the temper of that House was in those days in
maintaining its independence of thought and action, especi-
ally on questions of taking money out of the Treasury, that is
to say, out of the people's pockets ; secondly, how fiercely
public and Congressional rage then burned against the mon-
strous Yazoo crime; and lastly, that that prodigy of parlia-
mentary oratory and debating talent, John Randolph, was
there from the outset to the end in all the pride of
young manhood, yet ripe genius and stored, cultivated
mind, lashing the House up all the while to its indignant
duty with his versatile, unsparing, exhaustless powers of
eloquence and argument, persuasion and investive.

Weary of long waiting and continued disappointment, to
which they saw no end on their present tack, the Yazooists
determined at last on a new departure on demonstrating to
Congress in a manner, at once practical and astounding, that
their title was one capable of being supported in law, the
opinion of the three Cabinet Commissioners and of the ma-
jority of the House to the contrary notwithstanding, and
that their claims, in the event of being thrust out of the
National Legislature, were sure of finding a favorable recep-
tion in the sanctuary of the National Courts. The pro-
ceedure instituted and prosecuted to a close with a view to
this demonstration long stood out to view as the most erratic
and lawless judicial phenomenon ever known iu our history.



THE YAZOO FRAUD. 135

It was eminently an unprincipled and audacious thing, and
nothing but that sort of triumphal palliation which success
too often imparts to crime in this world could ever have
prevented it from being regarded by everybody as also a
mad and disgraceful thing.

The plan was to get up and carry through all the wind-
ings and forms of high litigation a feigned case, so contrived
as to draw out from the Supreme Court of the United States,
if entertained there, a solemn, though volunteer, gratuitous
pronouncement ex cathedra in favor of the claimants on all
the points they deemed necessary or advantageous to their
title. It was the celebrated case of Fletcher against Peck,
reported at great length in the 6th volume of Cranch. No
professional man acquainted with the story of the Yazoo
Fraud can possibly read that case without seeing in it the
unmistakable brands and marks of a feigned case, even
though one of the Judges, Johnson, had not weakly called
attention to the flagrant fact* I say weakly, because he
nevertheless, was not prevented by the fact, from entertain-
ing the case and pronouncing an opinion thereon in favor of